A story from the Shadow Elm Memoir.
The Pisgah National Forest is over 500,000 acres of ancient trees, peaks, secrets, and mysteries in Western North Carolina. The ghost lights above Brown Mountains are one of the many enigmas that are impossible to explain outside of folklore and supernatural reasons. The Lights first decided to reveal themselves to the midnight travelers before our time. Are they something natural, an apparition, or something deserving of my deepest affection? I do know. Because I fell in love with something within those woods.
I’ve fallen in love three times in my life. The first was in the Pisgah Forest, amongst the green hardwoods and white waterfalls. I’ll talk about the other two at a later time.
I strolled into the Immortal Elf tavern in Charlotte for my first New Year’s Eve as a bachelor. This status remained this way for several months after that first visit. The Elf had become my third home. If I wasn’t at home or work, I was there drinking light beer and Reuben sandwiches. (My taste in beer has improved, but I sure do miss those Reubans.) Always at the end of the bar, on the same bar stool, beside the Mick Jagger poster. This Mick was illustrated like one of those Andy Warhol pop art pieces, which I was convinced was judging me. That bar stool was always cold and waiting for me. I was the only one who ever sat on top of it. That was true because Rosie told everyone else they couldn’t sit there.
I don’t know exactly when I started dating Rosie, the Elf bartender who chatted me up all those first months in Charlotte, North Carolina. It just happened one day. People described her as an old soul, even though I was older. Not by much. She was twenty-one then, and I was almost on the wrong side of my mid-twenties. She sometimes came across as a little too mature and serious to some. They mistook that for her passion and grit. Rosie desired to be a great dancer.
My understanding of what makes a dancer great is nonexistent, and my opinions of her abilities wouldn’t catapult her to the next level. But I thought she was phenomenal every time I got the chance to watch her in her craft. I should’ve told her that more.
Sometimes, she invited me to come by to her practices. I was excited when she did and envious when she didn’t. I showed up and became enamored by her movements and art. I remember how she coordinated her dancewear with her hair and eyes. She wore dark colors with emerald sequin to match her black hair and green eyes. She was fierce.
Rosie always took her week’s ballet rehearsals hard. Especially that one week, she had reserved afternoon times, from 3 PM to 5:45 PM, in a friend’s dance studio to practice for her upcoming audition for some dystopian-world-themed ballet called The Midnight Bag. I saw less of her this week. If not at the studio, then she was asleep or at work. I remember because we were going to spend the weekend with her family. I hadn’t met any of her family yet and was quite anxious about getting introduced to them.
I showed up at the end of Friday’s practice to drive up to the North Carolina mountains, where she was from. She told me she was frustrated and annoyed because she couldn’t get the required and challenging triple-pirouette figured out for the audition. I hugged her, said something supportive and encouraging, and asked to see the dance move.
Rosie started in a fourth position with her feet pointing outwards, in front of each other. Then, she went into a plies by first opening her arms and closing them in front of her chest. Into a retime position, she pushed off with her back foot to turn; one leg and foot is in a supportive full point on the ground, and the other is bent with its foot on her supporting leg’s knee. Rosie spun 360 degrees once. Then twice, but wiped out on the wooden dance floor before completing the final turn to finish the triple-pirouette.
“I almost had it,” she seethed in frustration. The time is almost six o’clock now. Students for the next class started to arrive. She remains lying on the floor, sees their reflection in the giant dance studio mirrors, and wishes she had five more minutes to attempt the triple-pirouette again. Moments later, she pushed up from the floor and collected her things. We passed one of her friends on her way out of the dance studio. The friend asks her for dinner, but Rosie says she can’t because we’re heading away for the weekend.
I wanted to go over to Rosie when she was on the floor. It took everything I had not to rush over to pick her up. She didn’t want me to like I had before. Only once, though.
“You’re a noble guy, Larry Byrd, but please don’t hoist me up from the wood again,” Rosie demanded. The “wood” is what she called any dance stage or studio floor.
“But I saw you fall and wanted to ensure you were alright,” I responded.
Rosie explained, “I know you had good intentions, but I have to be self-reliant with my dancing. I have to be the one to pick myself up when I wipe out. No matter how bad I get bruised or hurt. It has to be me.”
This I understood and respected. Rosie’s disposition and aptitude for dance and her life were astonishing.
We took Interstate 85 to US Highway 321 to Interstate 40 from Charlotte toward Asheville. We got off at one of the Morganton exits. Then, we cruised through Morganton and headed north to her family home in the Pisgah Forest.
I had no idea where we were when Rosie made the right turn from the highway we were on to the driveway to her home. It was so dark and curvy that she turned on her high beams because the moonlight wasn’t enough to cut through the dense black trees running along one side of the driveway.
We made it to her family home without falling off the mountain. I was thankful that Rosie wasn’t taking me to an isolated place where no one could hear me scream. She could have, if she had a different motive this weekend for me.
Here’s where I get a little vague. I can’t be too specific about the mountain house or her family to keep Rosie’s loved one safe and unharmed. If anything was to happen to them.
All I will reveal about the house is that it is massive, made out of logs, and was built on ancestral land that had been in Rosie’s family for multiple generations. At least that’s what I was told by her fascinating Grandfather.
Her family is fantastic and welcoming. We got along splendidly. They fed me expensive white wine and creamy freshwater trout that her brothers caught somewhere in the gorge. That’s not why they impressed me. It is how inclusive they were of me. I’m not talking about them being affluent and me from a lower middle-class upbringing.
The second night, her dad asked me if I had ever heard of the Brown Mountain Lights.
I told him, “No, sir.”
He nodded, shook my hand, and said that he trusted me and would take me to see the lights. I thought he was talking about trusting me with his daughter. Best intentions and stuff like that.
After dinner, the next thing I knew, I’d become a passenger in a large, expensive SUV caravan meandering the mountain roads in the pitch-black Pisgah Forest. Rosie’s dad announced at dinner that the whole family was going for a ride after we ate. I figured we were heading to Brown Mountain but didn’t know our destination. We were on our way somewhere. This seemed like a good idea. Even if I didn’t want to go, I couldn’t have said “no” because I was spending time with Rosie’s family for the first time.
I watched all the road curves, and the tall trees appear in the SUV’s headlights. Rosie is on my left in the back seat, but the drive felt like an eternity. No one was talking. The sand moved slowly through the hourglass in those silent moments. This was my first time up this high in North Carolina, and all those damn mountain roads look the same. We finally slowed down, drifted off the road into some driveway, and parked. The rest of the caravan followed the lead. Rosie touched my left leg and whispered, “We’re here.”
I was handed a flashlight. Then I heard several front and back car doors swing open and close. Everyone was talking amongst themselves under the starry night. I’m wasn’t paying them any attention thought. I twirled around and looked up instead. My mind was enchanted by the mesmerizing starlights and twinkles. It took Rosie’s hand on my shoulder to draw my attention away.
We turned on our flashlights and I could see all the vehicles parked in a straight line in some semi-circle parking lot. Rosie grabbed my hand and led me to a brown sign that said, “View Brown Mountain,” “Elev. 2,725 ft.” and “Elev. here 2,760 ft.” in white letters.
“So, this is Brown Mountain,” I asked her.
She pointed beyond the sign and said, “This is the overlook. Brown Mountain is over there.” I turned around and looked in the direction she was pointing, but I needed to know which she was pointing to. Brown Mountain was somewhere out there in the vast expansion.
“Don’t get too close to the edge. I don’t want you to fall. None of us can fly fast enough to save you from going splat,” Rosie told me. I redirect the beam from my flashlight to her. I saw her giggling in the spotlight.
“What did you just say–”
“Is everyone ready? We have an audience on the mountain tonight. Let’s give him the full show and maybe an encore. What do you think?” Rosie’s dad interrupted my question to Rosie. I’m thinking, what in the hell is he talking about, and are they about to Texas chainsaw massacre me?
I heard some hooting and hollering from her family. I then learned what that means in North Carolina.
My girlfriend tried to tell me about what was about to transpire. She said I was about to see multiple severe bright lights. What the hell? I didn’t know what she meant then. But I’ll tell you what happened next: the moments I went from being infatuated with Rosie to loving her.
Rosie and her family transformed from their human forms into what looked like glowing pixie-like creatures with giant insect wings on their backs. It was a gorgeous experience. I learned later that they are called will-of-the-wisps.
They began to hover and shine. The light was radiating from them. Rosie said there would be bright lights, but she didn’t say they would be almost blinding. I had to block their radiance with my arm. It was too much for my sensitive eyes. I later learned that lighter-eyed people are more susceptible to light. Something about us having lower pigment density when blocking light rays. This meant that my blue eyes could not handle the shocking brightness that was surrounding me.
They looked like yellow orbs gathered in the black sky. The will-of-the-wisps moved through the air in the most poised manner, moving toward the mountain tops before me. I assume where they stopped was Brown Mountain. I would’ve lost them in the stars if they hadn’t stayed moving around.
I took a seat on the ground to enjoy the show. The land was damp and cold. Oh well. I had a wet butt. Their performance (I’m going to call it that) looked like the synchronized swimming of shooting stars merged with the wonder of a fireworks show.
So, this is the Brown Mountain Lights! Rosie and her family are the Brown Mountain Lights and have been for generations. That’s why she’s a dancer. She’s been dancing in the night sky for years.
I watched one of the orbs separate from the group and flew back to the overlook. Rosie was still in her pixie form, now suspended about ten feet above me. She bowed and started to spin away from me. I jumped up from the ground and cheered her on. Oh my gosh!!! I was crying. She did a triple-pirouette.
When she fluttered down, I wrapped my arms around her and gave her the most passionate and loving kiss. Her hands went down my back, and she started laughing when she felt my wet butt. The bottom of my pants was still soaked from sitting on the damp ground. I laughed, also. It was pretty humorous.
Then I told her I loved her for the first time.
This experience was crazy! It came a few months after watching a guy turn into a vampire. My magnetic pattern with the supernatural.
Rosie and I were happy and in love for many years in North Carolina. Then, one day, her role in The Midnight Bag got her an opportunity to go dancing in New York. That was always one of her dreams. I told her she had to go. We remained close initially after she moved, but eventually we called our relationship off. I knew it was going to happen. Rosie was where she needed to be.
I still think about her and wonder where she ended up. Back to the Pisgah Forest, or is she still in New York? I’ve returned to the Brown Mountain Overlook many times but never saw the lights again. I longed to see her triple-pirouette one more time.
She never knew this, but I visited New York to see her in The Nutcracker. She was a mouse or rat or something. She was sensational on that wood. That was the last time I saw Rosie the dancing will-of-the-wisp. My first beloved. I wonder if she ever thought about me.
<END>
Follow me on Instagram: @stormstrouper
Shoot me an Email: stormstrouper.writing@gmail.com